Lucia Cruz, San Antonio, Texas mom arrested for forcing daughter under the age of 12 to walk 19 miles to school cause she was too hungover to drive her after fighting with her boyfriend.
A Texas mom too hungover to take her daughter to school demanded the girl walk 19 miles to school all alone after a night of heavy drink.
Lucia Victoria Marie Cruz, 35, of Orpheus Way, San Antonio is alleged to have ordered the girl to make her own way to school after the child attempting to wake up her ‘hung over’ mom, Wednesday morning.
Not wishing to anger her mom the child set out on the nearly 7 hour journey it would have taken her to reach school (never mind school would’ve been over) before a concerned driver spotted the girl on mile one as the girl walked along the side of a dangerous highway.
Child under 12 years old was observed walking on her own close to busy highway
At the time of her discovery, along State Highway 211, the girl only described as being under the age of 12 was found with no phone or no way of being able to contact anyone in the event of an emergency according to an arrest report cited by the San Antonio Express-News.
The witness said the girl was trying, to stay off the road itself but cactuses and brush forced her closer and closer to the passing cars.
The witness who noticed the girl picked her up and drove her to school, telling school officers what happened once they arrived.
That’s when cops headed over to the girl’s home, where Lucia Cruz was arrested and charged with one count of abandoning or endangering a child in imminent danger of bodily injury, according to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.
Incident leads to neighbors expressing shock
News of the incident shocked Cruz’s neighbors.
‘It’s super congested with all the traffic and stuff like that,’ neighbor, James Nuells told KSAT. ‘So having a little girl like that walk down 211 don’t make no sense.’
‘My wife would kill me,’ the neighbor added. ‘My kids barely even walk down the street to take the bus, and I walk with them.’
Leading up to the incident, the child said she tried to wake her mother up after Cruz had passed out from drinking a bottle of wine following an argument with her boyfriend the night before, according to the sheriff’s office.
The mother, however, only briefly roused, allegedly denied her daughter a ride to school, told her to walk there by herself, and then went back to sleep, law enforcement alleges. Not wishing to upset or disobey her mother, the girl began the 19 mile trek to class.
Cruz was arrested and booked into the Bexar County jail on Wednesday evening. She was released early Thursday morning after posting bond, court records show.
The girl was placed with another relative, following the mom’s arrest.
